I know of at least one vintner in the Midwest who is aiming for "the greater wine drinking community". My sister and her husband, Pam and Ken Rosmann, are harvesting grapes now and will soon open their new winery, Famous Fossil, in Freeport, Illinois. This is an organic vineyard using biodynamic methods. The wine is excellent! Some of the grapes are those developed for cold climates by the University of Minnesota. They have had a good reception from the locals, even convincing nearby farmers to curtail chemical fertilizers. Part of this is due to their outgoing and fun personalities and willingness to share their knowledge and love of wine. But I really think that when the wine is good, people will come. And there are a lot of sophisticated palettes in Minneapolis, Madison, Milwaukee and Chicago among other cities in the area. PS They are also developing some fruit wines for the "local tastes."

"the unholy matrimony of European traditions and Midwestern flair" Hahaha!On the one hand this is the Economist showing it's elitist roots, after all, if I mix coke and wine (as was popular a few years ago in China) and I like it, then who the hell are you to tell me that's wrong? On the other hand, there are some real differences in the Midwestern palate, ones that won't translate to the wider world well. I took my Australian wife back home to Iowa for Christmas, and my grandmother served up a bottle of blackberry wine she had bought at the Amana colonies. The first notes were a blast of berry and sugar, followed shortly by an ethanol finish. My poor wife was doubly whacked because she didn't quite grasp that no grapes had been used in manufacture of this "wine". Still, the wine was considered to be "very nice" by all Iowans at the table. So I guess these local vintners are going to have to decide if they want to aim for (current) local tastes, or go for the greater wine drinking community and hope that local palettes standardize. I'm guessing that it will be the latter, as the Midwest doesn't have much of a home-grown wine drinking culture to start with. Still, I absolutely HATE the elitist culture that surrounds wine, and welcome any development that sees the masses drinking what THEY like, as opposed to what the critics tell them is good, and if there is anywhere on earth where that might happen it's in the heartland.

I live in the Chicago area, and it's unclear to me that the objective of local vintners is to compete with California. There's actually a lot of natural scenery in the area. Locals already venture to Michigan and Wisconsin for vacations. This just adds another aspect, extracts a little extra money (or keeps it local), and it give the farmers a higher value added crop. It's a win times N situation. What would be most helpful in my opinion is to get rid of the dumb border tariffs. I once did a little tour of Michigan and Ontario and visited vineyards in both. I thought NAFTA had freed up trade, but I was wrong. Also, just to emphasize your point that there are already local varieties, and wild grapes are all over the place.

"The new varieties are named after Midwestern places with conveniently French names (Marquette, Frontenac) or are Midwestern French-sounding inventions (La Crescent)."

Yes, La Crescent is a French-sounding invention. But it's also an actual Midwestern place. La Crescent, Minnesota is just across the Mississippi River from La Crosse, Wisconsin. Given that the eponymous wine variety was developed by researchers at the University of Minnesota, La Crescent appears to be named in honor of the town.

I once had a super sweet Missouri wine that was branded as having 'notes of strawberry and cotton candy'. Equating a wine's taste to such state fair fare highlights the fact that this region has a long, long way to go before it makes any real footprint on the American, let alone, itnernational wine scene.

Midwestern wines are also well represented in Missouri, where the winters tend to be milder than Michigan or Minnesota, but summers can sometimes be problematic for the fruit.Changes in law which make shipping directly from the winery legal make it much easier to get a sampling of wines not based on the West Coast, although this can get a bit pricey.OhioPaul

Thanks much for the great coverage of an under-reported story. But a couple of corrections / clarifications to this article are necessary.I can't speak to the figures in other states, but Michigan has NOT grown from 28 to 112 wineries since 1995. Rather, it has 112 active winery licenses, bit only HALF that number of actual working wineries. The difference? Winery licenses are also required (because fermentation takes place on the premises)of 50 or more storefronts that offer customers the opportunity to "bottle-your-own wine" from prepackaged kits of juice or concentrate. At least in Michigan, finding and "branding" new grapes to plant is not an issue, either. AStatewide, the #1 planted grape over the last half-dozen years has been Riesling, pretty much of a household name wherever wine is consumed. Finally, Michigan's taxpayers do NOT fund the state's wine council -- even with the taxes paid on wine! The council receives state funding only through the alcoholic beverage licensing fees paid by those who make and sell the beverages.Joel www.michwine.com